Keyword Research Tool&nbspAccuracy

The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

For a long time, the SEO world has revolved around the idea that KW volume prediction tools could only give relative levels of accuracy, i.e. term X is more popular than term Y. These tools have never been good at fulfilling their true claim - predicting search volume.

I set up a campaign to test the predictions of KW research tools like KeywordDiscovery, Overture, Wordtracker, MSN, etc. It won't be ready to give up the data until the end of November (perhaps even later), but in the meantime, I thought it would be valuable to ask and discuss the various KW tools.

Obviously, there are lots of tools that pull from these primary data sources, but I'm more interested in which you generally find to be most accurate in predicting actual search volume.

I just accidentally deleted my first post here at SEOmoz (while trying to edit it), but luckily, it was also one of my worst posts ever, so it almost feels like fate...

I find that requesting an expand or projection (from the different respective search engines) will yield the most accurate results for impression count on any industry specific terms. Also finding new key phrases that are relevant.

PPC and natural seo inevitably go hand in hand in terms of Keywords and conversions.

I also know that competitive analysis tools usually use Hitwise or KWD for their keyword research.

There's no doubt that if you are targeting a particular search engine for PPC purposes that relaying on an online tool is a mistake (as you would find that 60% of a recommended Overture/Yahoo keyword tool won't be viable on a smaller search engine).

Google have the largest available database internationally (and nationally) for key phrase searches - keeping that in mind is quite relevant.

Ditto what other said about Google Trends - plus you can "normalize" the results by comparing to a keyword that you have other insights into how much actual traffic it really sends (example: you rank well for it).

Daz, I think the only slight flaw with that approach is that very often what they company calls something and what the average person on the street calls it are often different things. With that said, I think understanding the client and their customer is the first priority.

Getting a "seed list" from your client, although the phrases may have no traction with regards to search, lets you know where your clients are coming from. It also gives you points to illustrate when you talk to them AFTER you've done keyword research. One of my schpeals is *although you and I can come up with some great phrases related to your company/service/product, are humans typing them in? This is what my research will tell us, blah blah blah* - it shows them how valuable the keyword research step/process is.

Yup hear you on that one Wil which is why I look at all company literature, brochures, etc AND talk to the guys on the ground (its not always the boss who has the product knowledge) and find out what the customers call their services or products.

Definitely right that things can be called or refered to differently which is why I get as much data as possible - covers all the bases as they say.

Knowing that some things are called differently by my client and their customers also (ultimately) allows me to vary their web copy without sounding spammy or repetitive.

I often start with the Overture data for a high level look at the keywords. Then, use KD and WT to dig into the long tail. (Note that you can use free sites like nichebotclassic.com for this.) Use Google's keyword tool for synonyms. Scrape meta keywords from other sites, too. Used to use keyword tools from SearchFeed and FindWhat but these aren't so useful anymore.

Here's a quick Python class set I've written for working with WordZe (I don't know if there is a better place to post this. This blog post was what lead me to learning about WordZe, so I thought I would share this here):

Just save it as main.py and run. It will access your WordZe account using the API and return the results in a dictionary. If you aren't a programmer and want this extended, let me know here and I'll see what modifications I can make to help you out.

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(edit)I removed the code because it got all muddy in the WYSIWYG. I'll post it to my blog for anyone who wants it (am I allowed to link to my blog from here?)

I would have to say that Google Adwords is a good estimator of calculating seach volume. I agree with the comment made by Igor - "There are repeat ones here but still good info". It is great to find additional keywords that are linked to your initial keyword. This as a result will benefit the customer when you present a diverse range of words and phrases to choose from.

I think wordtracker give me a lot better information and is easier to use then Keyword Discovery and it is certainly not cheap on the annual fee. I don't mind paying it though because it is the best money I have ever spent,

I think this poll is a bit skewed and we'll see Keyword Discovery not get it's due because it cost real money. Overture will win this poll hands down cuz it's free and people use it out of habit. That habit will be mistaken as the misguided belief that it's the best.

Very good point--I hadn't thought of that. Nevertheless, I didn't vote for Overture because it can be a royal pain in the ass (times out, doesn't differentiate between singular and plural, puts words in alphabetical order, etc).

Ok ... now that we killed the Poll and learned that Rand is not a PRO at creating them just yet ;-) (Rand you're still "the man"), one way to really learn about the keywords you might want to optimize for is to run an Adwords campaign.

A company can launch an Adwords campaign and see the volume by analyzing impressions (I know there will be repeat ones here but still good info), clicks, click through, etc.

I use Overture and Wordtracker, but the most accurate info was digested when we ran a Google Adwords campaign for a month.

Not only will it show you search numbers, but by studying your Adwords campaign you can also calculate the effectiveness of a keyword for which you will want to do SEO. You'll be able to pick your keywords not just by the volume but also by it's conversion rate. (relevancy)

I'd rather optimize a page for a keyword that does an 8.0% conversion to sale than another keywords that's 30% more popular but shows a conversion rate of only 1%

I use google trends for relative comparisons between KWs that have a little search volume - and you can learn a little about seasonal and long term trends while you are at it. It's a great way to learn about stemming variants.

That's what I usually do as well.
The first step is to use DP's keyword suggestion tool to identify potential keywords and then I use Google trends and compare them with keywords that I already rank well for (they can be totally irrelevant, it doesn't really matter) and therefore I know how much traffic they can bring.

The Overture tool has many flaws which you need to be aware of and take into account when using it. For instance it misses misspellings, it puts the keywords in alphabetical order (even if the words aren't typed in that order), and it doesn't tell you the difference between singulars and plurals. I know there are others, but I use a set of tools to help ensure that I minimize the bias that each one has. Google trends is a good one to use to figure out if the plural version o a keyword gets a lot more play than the singular.

With the bidding tools (Overture, Adwords, etc), I was under the impression that we're looking at a whole different set of data - mainly bidding history data. Is this not correct? Not to say it's not important what people search on (then click an ad in order to be "counted" in this type of data), I just see two different data pools here; one a subset of the other.